Cyclists in the 2013 Tour de France, Corsica, France

© Pascal Pochard-Casabianca/AFP via Getty Image

Corsican win this race. Tour de France 2024

It's time to get pedalling. The Tour de France, the world's most famous bike race, is starting today. Beginning in Florence, Italy, the 2024 Tour will cover a total distance of 3497.3 kilometres. This year's course will be a little different from the other races in the Tour's history. The final finish line has always been in Paris; however, because the French capital will be busy getting ready for this year's Olympic Games, the race will end in Nice on France's Mediterranean coast.

The route of the Tour de France changes every year but always follows the same format: there are 21 day-long stages held over 23 or 24 days to give the riders a few rest days. The race covers a whole range of terrains, and there are always mountain stages in the Alps and the Pyrenees. The Tour de France has visited every region of Metropolitan France, although it wasn't until 2013, for the 100th edition of the race, that it visited the French island of Corsica. In today's image, riders take on the third stage of the 2013 Tour, between Ajaccio and Calvi on Corsica.